The twenty yards were ten now,--and the rush came. It was too swift and sudden for the eye to follow, and yet it failed of its object. The bird’s impetus simply dashed against the bare rock, on which itself was depicted. The expected victim--had he really heard the approach and feigned his ignorance till the last second?--had leapt straight upward, more, I thought, like a kangaroo than a man, touched a moment upon the top of the stone, and descended upon the farther side. The bird rushed round it. So did the man. The circuit was so short, the speed so great, that it was difficult to say which was pursuing the other. I thought that if the man increased his speed but a trifle he would be on the flying heels of his pursuer. In fact, that happened. The bird knew it, and tried to turn, but was a half-second too late, as it had been previously. The man had leapt on to its back. Its beak was twisted round to tear him, but his two hands gripped the scraggy feathered throat and held it off. The long neck jerked desperately. But the man’s grip was inexorable. It found that, with all its wrenching, it could not break clear: with all its efforts it could not get its beak near enough to tear him. Balancing on one leg, it raised the other to pull him off, as a hen scratches her eye. An olive-green thigh reddened where a long claw caught it, but then the man’s leg, that seemed so strangely flexible, was twisted round the attacking limb, and had gained control of the danger. The bird staggered, and its leg came to ground again. As it did so, I saw the man reach up his other foot, the long central claw catching in the skinny throat, just below where he had gripped it beneath the beak. He drove it in, and tore downward. The bird plunged violently. Bird and man came to the ground together in a flurry of feathers. Then the man leapt clear. He leapt far forward, over its head, a bound of twenty feet, if not thirty, with a head that looked back as he did so. But the bird did not follow. It lay where it had fallen. Blood poured from the opened throat, a bright scarlet on the green grass. The legs kicked, and were still. The man came back cautiously. The bird had died just beneath the picture which he had made. He looked from one to the other, and his gaze was troubled. He picked up the head, and raised it with the limp neck till it was at the height of his shoulder. He appeared to compare it with his drawing, and was not contented. It was only after this that he showed consciousness of his own wound. There was a long gash on the side of the thigh, and the blood ran to his foot. Probably it was not deep. He jumped twice, and the bleeding increased. He threw back his head, and his mouth opened widely. We supposed that he was calling loudly, though we could hear nothing. He did this several times. Then he sat down by the dead bird, and waited. We stood there for a few minutes longer, but nothing happened, and we passed on.